Clinical Anatomy of the Knee Menisci: the Questions of The Day
Vytautas Tutkus, Janina Tutkuvienė
Summary
Despite the long history of meniscal research, this issue still remains under discussion. New technologies of meniscal treatment (artificial menisci, donor meniscus transplantation) encourage the detailed morphological research on variety in size and shape of menisci with the purpose to choose a suitable donor meniscus. Those studies are not frequent, various authors provide the different measurements of menisci indicating only several characteri stics. There are only few studies related to the discoid meniscus. The experience of our doctors’ in discoid meniscus treatment isn’t sufficient, and the strategy for treatment of tears at the discoid meniscus often is undefined. The types and localizations of meniscal tears are not fully researched worldwide, several studies on type and localization of meniscal tears give the different results for various populations, therefore the strategy for treatment of meniscal inuries with different types of tears often raises doubts at clinical practice. The correlation between the meniscal tears and the other pathology of the knee structures remains still unclear. This majority of data on the prevalence of meniscal damage at the stable and unstable knee joint is controversial, and there has not been sufficient research on the knee damage in relation with gender, age and the other knee pathology. Many authors claim, that after the meniscectomy, the knee joint arthrosis occurs and progresses rather frequently, however, the latter data are scarce. Besides, the sexual dimorphism in the pathology of knee menisci is also undefined. The reationship between knee menisci, weight bearing surface, and the parallels with clinical pathology of the knee is complicated and not fully understood question. The data on the latter questions provided by different authors are diverse, therefore, in the future detailed and numerous studies on the knee menisci and weight bearing surface should be designed in relation with the age, the sex and the ethnicity.
Keywords: knee menisci, meniscal size, meniscal injuries, discoid meniscus.
